Holiday campaign ideas to help you reconnect with your customers

The holiday season is fast approaching, with it comes a great deal of festivities, celebrations and shopping. As marketing teams around the world brainstorm to reach out to their customers and win their hearts, we at Birch, are trying to help you launch exciting holiday campaigns without burning a hole in your pocket.

Here we bring to you, a detailed analysis of strengths and weaknesses of few handpicked campaigns to help you gain useful insights into their marketing genius.

#1 Dramatic and musical cat food campaign

This holiday campaign from cat food brand Temptations says – “Avoid holiday destruction, treat them too this season with Temptations.”

This dramatic ad starts with big white sheet covering some stuff..suddenly red and green lights start flashing and with a loud noise the sheet gets pulled off uncovering the beautiful holiday decorations. Famous Christmas carol “Deck the halls with boughs of holly…” starts playing. Many inquisitive cats watching this beautiful display, suddenly start running towards the decorations. To find out what happened next please watch the video above…

Baby food and baby care products can show babies messing up with holiday decorations.

#2 Emotional holiday campaign by Edeka

The Edeka Group is the largest German supermarket corporation. Ad starts with busy parents trying to finish holiday shopping, cooking, cleaning, putting Christmas lights and striking off things from their never ending to-do lists. Gloomy, dejected and bored kids watching their busy parents state the problem perfectly. Watch the video to find out what made the parents realize that the best gift is the time spent with your loved ones.

Strong points

Easy to connect with – Busy parents and dejected children seems like a scene from every household during cold and snowy holiday season.

Balanced content planning – 50% of the total ad sets the problem and remaining 50% goes in the solution.

Conveys a strong message that taking time to connect with the family is just as important as the festivities, very well written and executed.

Good ad length of 1 minute and 24 seconds

Weak points

Good awareness campaign about a social and psychological issue but the ad doesn’t talk directly about their offering

Big brands like Edeka can afford such ads which will be remembered and shared among the families but this might not have a direct impact on their sales cycle

Such campaigns are recommended for small and medium size businesses when they are trying to build the top of their sales funnel. To learn more about the ideal content distribution, please refer to this article.

Other businesses which can use similar campaigns

Products and services which help with everyday chores like laundry services, online grocery shopping and delivery, food delivery apps, home decoration services, home cleaning and appliance repair service providers.

Products dealing with children like gaming systems, educational toys to keep them happy and occupied while adults take care of chores.

Banks, credit cards, insurance companies can also use similar theme to show how parents don’t have to worry about finances during holidays so they can be busy creating memories with the loved ones.

#3 Heartwarming advert from John Lewis

John Lewis is a chain of high-end department stores operating throughout the United Kingdom. This John Lewis holiday campaign reminds us why gift of love is the greatest gift. The ad shows a little boy Sam playing, traveling and going around with his imaginary penguin friend Monty. After observing Monty carefully, Sam notices his friend’s desire to be loved. The ad ends with the boy getting another penguin as a Christmas present for his friend.

Strong points

Strong connect with children and parents throughout the ad.

Gives a peek into children’s mind and their imaginary world through a very simple story.

John Lewis has a tradition of coming up with a Christmas advert every holiday season. This keeps people waiting and talking about them every year.

Good use of call to action – “Click here to continue the story”

Weak points

Ad is long – more than 2 mins in length.

Very less focus on the brand – brand comes in only towards the end.

Seems more like a nice, heartwarming Christmas story which is a good brand engagement strategy but not aimed at increasing sales.

Other businesses which can use similar campaign

Toy stores

Food products for kids, any product where the “love” in the ad can be replaced with the product like chocolates, icecreams, pizza etc.

Pet food/toys where the gift for the pet is the pet food/toy

NGOs can use similar ad where the tag line is very helpful- “Give someone a Christmas they have been dreaming of”.

#4 Inspiring brand awareness campaign from Paper Boat

Paper Boat is a brand of non-carbonated beverages and energy drinks produced and marketed by Hector Beverages, located in Bangalore, India. In this campaign Paper Boat brings together famous movers and shakers to inspire us all. The ad has a very beautiful rendering of a popular anthem “Hum honge kamyab” – which is full of hope and very close to the heart of it’s target audience. Tagline – Drinks and memories.

Strong points

Good brand focus – Starts and ends with the brand logo which helps you remember the brand name even after you are done watching it or while you are sharing.